A court order confirmed on Tuesday morning prohibits Zac Lomax from entering into a contract, working, training, or playing with any NRL club until 31 October 2027 without the Eels' written consent.

Crucially, Parramatta haven't slammed the door and are willing to work with Lomax and his agent to find an NRL club that wants to sign him in exchange for "appropriate value" for their football program.

Parramatta set a dangerously high standard for letting Lomax go to another club, with Melbourne proposing multiple deals, including two final proposals.

One being a $750,000 transfer fee to bring Lomax to the club, and the second seeing the Storm agreeing to sign Ryan Matterson, paying out the remainder of his $416,000 contract and $300,000 in cash.

Matterson was set to be contracted this year with 2027 being an option controlled by the team if he was to head to the Storm.

The Eels forward rejected the move, as he wanted the second year of his deal with Melbourne guaranteed instead of an option per all reports.

There are two tools a club can use to compensate another in a swap or transfer:

Cash sits entirely off the salary cap.

It goes directly into the receiving club's football department budget: things like for recruitment, retention, staff etc.

It frees equivalent space on the receiving club's book without the acquiring club necessarily paying wages to any specific player.

Player swaps are the third option, and the most complex.

Any play offered a compensation must be a genuine football asset, not a salary dump the acquiring club is trying to offload.

Both the NRL and the receiving club can reject a player swap on those ground.

The player himself must agree to the move, and no player can be traded without their consent under the standard NRL player contract.

With these tools in hand, here are five clubs that could realistically put together a package Parramatta could accept.

4. St George Illawarra Dragons: Tyrell Sloan

The Dragons would swap Sloan to the Eels plus pay the remainder of Matterson's expiring deal for this season in exchange for getting Lomax back to the Dragons on a multi-year deal.

This is the deal most specifically engineered to solve Parramatta's dilemma with Matterson as well as gaining a player looking to stay in the NRL with Sloan.

Shane Flanagan has mentioned how he wants to get two or three more players, and with the club targeting Mitchell Barnett, the Dragons are aiming to make more big time moves in the market.

With a potential backline reading Lomax, Valentine Holmes, Setu Tu and Moses Suli it would present a defensive nightmare for opposition teams, and when he was coached by Shane Flanagan, he won Dally M Winger of The Year in 2024 before he arrived at the Eels.

Sloan's finishing ability and speed on the wing could be of interest to the Eels.

This deal would be more about getting Matterson's 2026 salary off the books and get a cheaper alternative with Sloan in order to make a move for someone like Mitchell Barnett, who wants to return to NSW in 2027.

Sloan's reported $500k salary and getting Matterson's contract bought out could be a deal where the Eels don't necesarily get a win-now player, but instead gives them more flexibility for bigger moves or even retain young talent at the club for the long-term.

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